


vast immortal sun

by ultalumna (yujael)



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, Immortality, just to flex on his Actual Shield, when ya love ya boy so much you'll use your own immortality as a shield
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-01
Updated: 2019-04-01
Packaged: 2019-12-30 06:24:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,997
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18309977
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yujael/pseuds/ultalumna
Summary: Prompto learns two things over the years, even if he doesn't learn the whys and hows of them.One, he is immortal. Two, he'll do anything for Noctis.





	vast immortal sun

The first time is an accident. Prompto doesn’t learn anything except for how weird his dreams can get. He’s a kid, barely eleven, and his parents have just left the house for the weekend. He’s alone and he plans to use the extended emptiness of the house to try out a couple new recipes for his diet without anybody seeing the potential messes that might come about when a kid just slightly too short to properly use the stove without a stool tries to do just that.

Before he can get started, though, he takes the corner in front of the stairs just a little too fast in his socked feet and winds up slipping and falling off the top step, tumbling painfully down to the bottom landing. He rolls and his elbows knock against the hardwood, then his back, his ribs, and then, just as he’s trying to right himself before he rolls literally all the way down, he turns awkwardly and hits the landing on his neck with the most painful _snap_ yet.

And then, Prompto isn’t thinking about how much it hurt to go down the stairs like that, or about how careful he should have been, or even about what he’d been planning to make for dinner. He isn’t thinking about anything. There’s nothing _to_ thinking about because there’s just… nothing at all.

And then he comes to, lying on a heap on the floor in a dim house. He sits up and rubs the back of his head and glares at his socks--because really? Knocking himself out on his own stairs because of his own clumsy feet? That’s a new low, even for him.

But Prompto puffs himself up with watery confidence and gets to his feet. He’s starving and his parents aren’t home, and maybe he won’t try making anything new tonight, but he’s still gotta make  _something_.

He buries the incident under as many pictures and miscellaneous everyday details as he can in an effort to forget about his own embarrassment--at least no one else had been around to see that--and for a while, he only thinks about it again after the sensation of falling, of cracking apart, wakes him up at night.

 

*

 

The second time is not an accident. And this time, Prompto knows exactly what happens, the same way he knows what his body does with the air he breathes in. Instinct. Knowledge written into his bones.

It’s been years since the first time, that evening that he barely even remembers anymore. He’s hanging out with Noctis all the time, or as often as he can, and it’s totally _awesome_. They’re the best of friends, two perfectly designed cogs in a well-oiled machine, and there’s nothing that can wreck the good mood when they’re around each other.

Except for Ignis, sometimes, or Gladio, other times. Or, as it happens, dark and rainy nights after they’ve given both retainers the slip.

They’re heading to Prompto’s place because the house is blessedly empty. Nothing important or royal about it, the perfect place to chill until either Ignis arrives with a car to haul Noctis off, or Gladio tries to kick down the front door to haul Nocis off. Before all that, though, it’s just Prompto, Noctis, a single umbrella, and a whole lot of puddles. It’s getting late, too, so most of the roads around Prompto’s home are quiet and dark, which encourages them to shove each other back and forth into the largest puddles.

They both see the faint lights that dance across the wet posts along the sidewalk, growing steadily stronger. Prompto doesn’t think anything of them at first, not until the vehicle they belong to gets closer and closer without pause. It’s only when Noctis has his back turned in the middle of the road that Prompto realizes the driver can’t see Noctis when he’s wearing all black in the pouring rain on a dim street-- _the driver isn’t going to slow down_.

And Prompto acts before the thought to do so has even crossed his mind. He drops their single umbrella and lets the wind take it in favour of bolting forward and shoving himself into Noctis with every ounce of strength in his body. It’s just enough to get Noctis out of the way, and he has just enough time to register the shock on Noctis’ face, in his voice, before the truck collides with him.

And then, for a split second, Prompto registers nothing through the all-encompassing pain in his body except for the single, strangely calm thought-- _I’m dying_. There’s no two ways about it. He got hit by a speeding truck and now he’s broken on the side of the road, dying. Them’s the facts.

And then, nothing. He doesn’t register the rain soaking him through after the truck speeds off, nor Noctis’ strangled cry. He doesn’t feel the cold or the warmth of Noctis’ skin as he gathers Prompto up in his arms, shakes his shoulders and runs his fingers through the blood on his face. He doesn’t hear Noctis beg.

But when Prompto gasps for a new breath of air and opens his eyes, lashes fluttering against the spitting rain, he does hear Noctis’ choked shock, his voice gone thick. He sees the pain etched in Noctis’ features despite the complete lack of pain in his own body, and he lifts a hand toward Noctis’ shoulder--because he can do that. Because his bones aren’t broken, shattered on impact.

Because he’s not dead.

“It’s okay,” he tells Noctis, still gasping for breath. “It’s okay, Noct, I’m fine. It’s fine.”

Noctis crushes him in his embrace--because Prompto  _died_. But he’s  _fine_.

He isn’t going anywhere.

 

*

 

They don’t tell anyone, not for ages. It’s hard enough on Noctis to know that his best friend _died_ for him right before his eyes and then came  _back_. Neither of them really want to know what other people would do with such information. So, they keep that stuff on lockdown, and if Noctis gets weirdly clingy around Prompto for a while, well, everyone says it's a phase. People have phases.

But then, they’re in Duscae, the four of them on their way to Lestallum in a car that desperately needs a wash after rolling around Leide for days. Things are a lot more dangerous and Prompto finds himself thinking, more and more--is there going to be an incident? And, for a while, there isn’t because Ignis and Gladio and Noctis are badasses, but then there’s an MT ambush barely an hour after they run out of curatives after a hunt and the field is full of snipers.

Snipers who want to kill Noctis.

Two snipers in particular who, despite Gladio’s best efforts, have a clear shot at Noctis.

Prompto, again, sees them, sees the whole field like it’s all moving in slow motion, and he _knows_ \--he knows that his pistol won’t stop them, nor will Ignis’ daggers. Not soon enough. And so he does the only thing left available and _leaps_.

The pain is searing, blinding, so painful and bloody that the injuries must be jagged knife wounds and not bullet holes. But they are bullet holes, one through his gut, another through his lung. Prompto can’t move after he hits the ground, can’t breathe. His head is underwater, muffling Noctis’ shout, deadening the end of their battle.

“It’s okay, buddy,” Prompto manages to croak as his world is quickly reduced to the three faces hovering above him. Ignis, cracking even as he presses his hands against one of Prompto’s wounds. Gladio, quietly accepting the inevitable even though the desire to claw that back with bloody fingers is written across his face. Noctis, alive but in so much pain as he cradles Prompto’s face in his hands.

Prompto tries to grab onto one of Noctis’ cool hands with his own numb, clumsy fingers. He doesn’t think he manages it. Instead, there’s nothing. No tears, no cursing, no backing away, leaving Noctis in his grief at another loss.

Because Prompto opens his eyes as the sun begins to set, and Noctis lets out an absolutely wretched sound.

“You can’t keep doing this,” he cries, hands tight on Prompto’s shoulders.

“It’s okay,” Prompto tries to say once more. This time, he does get a hand around Noctis’ arm. His own blood has dried between his fingers--but he’s _fine_. “I’m not going anywhere.”

“It’s _not_ okay!” Noctis exclaims. “You can’t keep dying for me! Do you understand me?”

Prompto can’t speak at first, not when Noctis shakes his shoulders, not when Ignis and Gladio appear in his peripherals, both white as bone. This is the second time that he’s done this for Noctis and he knows, deep under all his fears, that he’d do it again--because he’d do anything for Noctis. But Noctis doesn’t want him to do that, to die over and over again if he has to.

And Noctis is adamant about it. He doesn’t let Prompto budge an inch until he gets the answer he wants, not even when Prompto tries to remind him that they all have a duty.

“I don’t care,” Noctis interrupts, his anger a fire in his eyes. “You can’t just keep dying for me, over and over--it was bad enough the first time!”

“The _first_ time?” Gladio asks, every word drenched in a cocktail of confusion, grief, things Prompto doesn’t know the name for. “What the hell is going on here?”

Prompto has never said the words, even though he and Noctis both know. They’ve never discussed it because the way it had come out was harrowing enough and there isn’t exactly a website for this kind of stuff, a hotline to call. Yes, hello--I can’t seem to die? Do I need medication for that?

Nope.

Noctis hauls Prompto to his feet and Ignis reaches in to draw Prompto’s shirt up as smoothly as he can with jerky fingers. There’s nothing but smooth skin stained red under the holes in the fabric.

“I don’t understand,” Ignis says faintly even though they all kind of do.

Prompto swallows thickly and says for the first time, “I think I’m immortal.”

 

*

 

This time, there is a discussion. Two of them, in fact.

During the first one, they lay out all the ground rules--chief among them being that Prompto isn’t allowed to die in stupid ways. He should really just avoid dying altogether, which is what he’d already been trying to do, but now he has to act with Noctis’ explicit command to not die for him in mind.

But then there’s another discussion, one held in whispers while Noctis is asleep. Prompto feels bad about leaving Noctis out, but they all know Noctis wouldn’t have stood for it.

But they all still have their duties, too, and Prompto had vowed before this journey began that he wouldn’t let anything happen to Noctis.

 

*

 

The fourth and fifth time are accidents. They’re spelunking for a royal weapon, and cackling daemons cause a cave-in. Prompto finds himself unable to see, move--unable to _breathe_ under the crushing darkness. He wakes, later, to the same darkness, the same weight, the same lack of air. The only difference is that he can hear muffled sounds from somewhere above him as he suffocates again. He wakes again, later, weighed down in the middle of the haven by nothing except Noctis’ trembling hand on his arm.

This time, Prompto apologizes as he gasps for air. It really had been an accident.

He doesn’t tell them he died twice. He doesn’t tell them how much worse his fear of the dark is.

 

*

 

The sixth time is not an accident--no, it is. It _is_ an accident. It isn't at first, the way he falls from the train, the way the breaking of his bones as he hits the ground echoes even in death. But later, when Noctis finds him again in the midst of the terrors of Gralea and begs again, this time for forgiveness, Prompto knows that it had been an accident.

And as such, there isn’t a whole lot to forgive because he’s exactly where he wants to be.

He’s not going anywhere.

 

*

 

The long night, this world of ruin, is exhausting without the sun. But Prompto wakes anyway. Again, again. He must--he’d claw himself back if he needed to. He doesn’t. He protects the small fire burning in him, again, again.

 

*

 

The last time is not an accident. It is totally, wholly, premeditated. A decision ten long, dark years in the making, mulled over since the moment he learned what Ignis learned from the Ring of the Lucii.

The Astrals, in their all-knowing cruelty, want a blood price. What is one good man’s life against that of an immortal?

Chilled to the bone by the cold ice, the smothering darkness--warmed by a candle’s light kept burning for a decade, Prompto climbs the steps of the Citadel, of the throne room alongside his brothers.

And the Astrals want their price, carried to them by their kings--

\--except Prompto stands before them all and screams himself hoarse--

\-- _what is eternal darkness compared to love_ \--

“It’s gonna be okay,” he whispers. It’s all he can do to grasp at Noctis’ fingers with Ignis supporting his arm, Gladio at his back, all with the sword of a hundred kings through his chest.

Noctis doesn’t beg. Not this time. He curls his hands tight around Prompto’s, leaving himself unable to wipe his eyes dry as magic--light--overflows in Prompto’s body. It burns him, striking lightning through his blood until finally, he’s weightless. And Noctis whispers back to him as his body shimmers, shatters.

“Stand tall, Prompto.”

 

*

 

Ardyn removes his hat and bows. They’re so tired.

 

*

 

_One good man for an immortal. Such is balance._

“You’re cruel,” Prompto whispers.

 

 

**

 

 

The sun rises over Eos. Dawn warms the sky for the first time in ten years. Again and again, a year later.

Prompto wakes up on the ground and blinks up at a brilliant blue sky--at an unnerved chocobo that nips and tugs at his clothes and makes small, distressed noises.

“What’s wrong?” Prompto asks it before he thinks to ask himself. Another chocobo pecks at his boot.

“Who’s out there?” Someone calls from beyond the crowd of curious birds. “This paddock’s not open, ain’t supposed to be anyone in there, you hear?”

Prompto sits up and the chocobos part for Wiz, who stops in his tracks, hand clutched tight around a cane. He looks better than he did the last time Prompto saw him--healthier, happier, surrounded by his chocobos again.

“I’ll be damned,” Wiz breathes.

Prompto pushes himself to his feet, looking toward the morning sky. His body feels lighter, and yet it doesn’t feel as if he’s one breath away from floating into the wind anymore. His uniform is tattered and stained. There is a great hole in the front of his vest, but beneath it is nothing but smooth, unblemished skin.

He’s… okay.

“Hey, Wiz,” Prompto says warmly, turning away from the sun peeking through the sweeping branches of the trees surrounding the chocobo ranch. “Think I could borrow one of these guys for a bit?”

 

*

 

Wiz must have called ahead. It’s the only explanation for what happens in Leide, not far from Longwythe Peak, the ghost of the adamantoise.

He hears the car before he sees it. It passes right by him, too, sleek, black thing leaving a trail of dust in its wake before it comes to a screeching halt. Noctis doesn’t even bother to throw the car into reverse. He simply leaves it idle in the middle of the road as he all but falls out of the driver’s side door and then gives Prompto about half a second to dismount his chocobo before he tackles him to the ground.

“Careful, buddy!” Prompto cries, laughing because he just can’t help it. It starts from somewhere deep in his chest, maybe from the same place all his extra lives were tucked, and doesn’t stop. “I’ve only got one of these left!”

Noctis pulls away to stare down at Prompto with a pain in his eyes that doesn’t suit him, not while the sun glows gold behind him. He stares at Prompto’s face, his hair, his torn and dirtied uniform, and chokes on his words. “It’s really you. You’re here.”

“Yeah, Noct,” Prompto says fondly. “I’m here. Sorry for taking a while.”

Gladio hauls them off the ground by the collars of their jackets. He’s lost for words, too, even though they’re all written clear as day on his weathered face as his hand lingers on Prompto’s back. Ignis reaches past him for Prompto’s shoulders, gripping them tightly as if to hold him down before the breeze steals him away, and then he draws Prompto into a crushing embrace.

“Hey, guys,” Prompto says with all the breath he can muster from the iron of Ignis’ arms. “How’ve you been? Keeping an eye on things while I’ve been gone?”

“Been kind of boring without you,” Gladio says at long last. He clears his throat, swallowing the cracks. “What the hell took you so long?”

“Sorry,” Prompto says again. “Traffic was kind of bad. But I’m here now.”

Ignis stops trying to squeeze his last life out of him, but he doesn’t go far. He simply moves so that Noctis can wrap Prompto up in his arms again, and Gladio can do the same with one of his.

“It’s good to have you back,” Noctis murmurs. His breathes are steady and strong. Healthy, alive.

“It’s good to be back,” Prompto replies. He tries his best to return their embraces, but he’s only got two arms. “Told you, didn’t I? I’m not going anywhere.”

And he isn’t. Warm as the sun sets over Eos and rises again in the morning, Prompto remains exactly where he wants to be.

**Author's Note:**

> Tonight on "lumna writes exclusively at midnight and then slaps it all down on the table and calls it a day," an Immortal!Prompto au wherein the only logistics that matter are how it allows him to tell some selfish gods to go screw someone else over instead of his best friend. I enjoyed this one because I enjoy dumping things on Prompto so that he can overcome them. Also obnoxiously sized scene breaks.


End file.
